Welcome to the start of another week with Inside Timeshare, over the weekend the emails have been coming in thick and fast from clients who have had dealings with the Mark Rowe companies such as ABC legal. All have the same story and also have now got the same problems. We also look at the latest news from the courts which came in this morning.

As we know ABC Legal was one of the Mark Rowe companies, offering “exits” from timeshare contracts with the promise of “compensation” at the end of it. Many of our readers who contacted us ended up with the “service” after being contacted by Rowe’s other companies such as Monster Credits and then Jive Hippo.

The promise was to get out of the timeshare but to do so the client had to purchase the products Monster Credits and Jive Hippo (which replaced Monster). Once they had made the purchase then ABC would “exit” them from the timeshare.

Unfortunately, all were told the same thing, “don’t pay any further maintenance”, if the timeshare company sends out demands they should ignore them and send them to ABC. They were also told not to contact their timeshare company, well, we know why, had they done so they would have found out at an earlier stage that they were not “exited” from their contracts.

All received the same “certificate of termination” from ABC who stated that as far as they were concerned the timeshare contract was ended and they did not envisage any timeshare company chasing for arrears.

Unfortunately, this is not the case, all our readers have received demands and in some cases threats of legal action if not paid.

As we reported in previous articles, ECC has taken over ABC assets and is now in the process of contacting clients. ECC works with M1 Legal and is looking into each case on an individual basis. If you had dealings with ABC you can contact ECC on the following email and see what they can do for you. [email protected]

This case involves Restotel SA and Clubotel SA, both part of the Ona Group, with the court declaring the contract illegal and therefore null and void. The court ordered the French client to be repaid his full purchase price of 36,876.36€, the court also ordered by way of penalty against Restotel to refund in double all payments made during the statutory cooling-off period amounting to 31,501.64€

The court also ordered the company to repay maintenance fees to the tune of 7,736.35€ giving the French client a total of 76,114.35€ plus legal fees and legal interest.

If you have a timeshare problem and would like to know your legal position or if you have been contacted by any company regarding relinquishment or claims and would like to know if they are genuine, please use our contact page and Inside Timeshare will get back to you.